Shigofumi - Episode 6

After last week's somewhat pointless episode, praise the Lord of anime above for the return to form of Shigofumi. While episode six isn't quite up there with the brilliance of that opening two-part story arc, it's the closest we've come so far, and I'm sure it's no coincidence that this particular storyline also just happened to feature little of Fumika (or indeed the Shigofumi she was looking to deliver), leaving the main plot to speak for itself.

The focus of this particular episode was bullying, and although in places it was perhaps rather unbelievable, it still did an excellent job of relaying the feelings of desperation and isolation suffered by the bullies victim, as well as the mixture of apathy and plain inability to help on the part of another, who in turn finds himself at the centre of the bullies games. While the episode didn't really break any new ground in the way it told its story, it still made for an emotionally powerful piece of work that would have stood up perfectly well without the concept of this show behind it. Indeed, the only link to Fumika at all was that, once again, this happened at the same school as the hostage situation we saw in episode three, which must make this particular place of learning the unluckiest or most dangerous in the world, with a body count that's racking up at a rate of knots.

At the moment, it's really hard to tell what Shigofumi will being us next, such is its hit and miss nature. I'm certainly all for more episodes such as this one however, as the lack of such a Fumika-centric storyline seems to give the real stories far much more space to breathe.